When I was an undergraduate studying biology, the one thing I said I would never do as a career was teach. I wasn't sure what to do when I graduated college since I no longer wanted to be in the medical field, and so I took a year off and became an AmeriCorps volunteer at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence. I applied for the position because 1. I love science and 2. I love community service and was very involved in college, so I figured that would be a good way to blend the two together. My position involved being an environmental educator and teaching kids of all ages (and adults) about a variety of environmental topics. I didn't take the position to be an educator, but lo and behold about halfway through my year of service I realized that I loved teaching and working with kids. I wound up doing a second year of AmeriCorps at the zoo, and I decided that I was going to apply to graduate school to be a science teacher. I love working with older kids (middle/high school) because you can present more difficult material and the students can understand it at a much higher level. I also loved working with Providence middle school students through PASA, which was an afterschool program where I taught humane education. PASA was one of the reasons I decided to do a second year of AmeriCorps, and it's one of the biggest reasons why I want to teach in an urban school.